Long-time Nielsen executive Sheryl Harkins has joined rival TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA) as senior vice president of CPG sales. A 17-year veteran of Nielsen, Harkins most recently was senior vice president of ad solutions sales and marketing.

Publicis Groupe has acquired Engauge Marketing LLC, a full-service and digital shop based in Columbus, Ohio. Terms were not disclosed, but New York private equity firm Halyard Capital was the majority owner f the 250-person agency, whose clients include Nationwide Insurance, Cisco Systems, and The Coca-Cola Company.

The New York Times website is down and various news reports are attributing it to an anonymous cyberattack.

Worldwide smartphones sales to end users outstripped those of feature phones for the first time in the second quarter, growing 46.5% to 225 million. Feature phone sales, by contrast, increased only 21% to 210 million, according to new data from Gartner.    Smartphones accounted for 51.8% of all mobile phone sales, with Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe showing the highest growth rates. Android was again the dominant operating system across smartphones in the quarter, with 79% market share. iOS was a distant second, at 14.2%, followed by Windows Phone, with 3.3%.  

Mobile ad network Millennial Media is acquiring rival Jumptap in a primarily stock-based deal, Millennial announced Wednesday. Under the deal, Jumptap shareholders will receive 24.6 million shares in publicly-traded Millennial, giving them ownership of about 22.5% of the company. Started in 2005, Jumptap to date has raised $122 million in venture backing and its network spans an audience of 100 million profiles. "Millennial Media already runs one of the largest third-party digital media businesses, despite …

That's what BitTorrent's Matt Mason just posted on BitTorrent's blog unveiling plans to do TV pilot development business. "Today's viewer is as much a contributor as a straight-up content consumer. Reddit shapes plot lines. Twitter is a writers' room. American Idols are chosen via text. Youtube is our film school. Is series development something that should be open-sourced? What if you opened up the pilot process to the people of the Internet?," he wrote, adding, "What if a TV series started acting like a startup?" The post announced that BitTorrent is partnering with Converge Studios to "find out." "Our latest …

Facebook on Monday said it has acquired Mobile Technologies, which specializes in speech recognition technology and makes the Jibbigo voice translation app. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Voice technology has become an increasingly important way for people to navigate mobile devices and the web, and this technology will help us evolve our products to match that evolution. We believe this acquisition is an investment in our long-term product roadmap as we continue towards our company's mission,” …

NBCUniversal just announced three key appointments to its digital advertising sales organization. Phil Cara joins as senior vice president-digital entertainment advertising sales, overseeing sites such as Fandango and E! Online. James Kreckler has been promoted to the same title, responsible for NBCUniversal's entire portfolio. Aaron Radin joins senior vice president, partnerships & portfolio products, a new position the entire NBCUniversal portfolio, which includes more than 50 digital properties in entertainment, sports and news reaching more than 100 million monthly unique visitors, as well as two broadcast networks-Spanish and English language-and 18 cable networks.

Following a competitive pitch by International Airlines Group (IAG), both British Airways and Iberia this morning named Carat its new global media shop. The accounts, which are effective in October and November, respectively, covers both airlines' global media planning and buying - with separate teams working on each account independently. British Airways head of marketing, Abigail Comber, stated: "We would also like to take the opportunity to thank Zenith Optimedia, Kinetic and Neo@Ogilvy who have made a huge contribution to our business to date." Iberia's head of Marketing, Carolina Martinoli, stated: "We're very grateful for the work our current media …

Instagram on Wednesday released the latest version of its photo- and video-sharing app, allowing users to upload videos from their media library. Instagram 4.1 also adds a feature that straightens crooked photos in the iOS version, and extends the Android app to those using an older version of the operating system. After introducing video-recording on Instagram last month, the company is adding the ability for people to import existing video clips from their phone’s library, trimmed to fit its 15-second limit. “We’ve also made it so that you …